INDIA (4)
vast majority—over 70 per cent—of India's
population lives in villages. Estimated that there are
over 700,000 of these villages, two-thirds of which
are in British Provinces. Majority of villagers are
small peasant landowners, but number of landless
labourers during recent years increased to 407
in every 1,000 cultivators.
Industrialism in India steadily developing. Total
number of factories increased from 5,144 in 1922 to
8,129 in I929- Principal industries are cotton textiles,
jute, and iron and steel. Before the depression,
profits of jute mills ranged from six to eight times
their total wages bill. Production of pig iron in
India increased more than 300 per cent (to 1,140,000
tons) between 1919 and 1929; and steel at a similar
rate. There are important coalfields in Bengal,
Bihar, and Orissa, some of them paying 100 and
120 per cent dividends on wages of 8d. per day.
Tea plantations, in Assam, Bengal, and Madras,
employ large masses of labourers; labour conditions
in these notoriously bad, including (vide Whitley
Commission's Report) employment of children at
8s. monthly wages.
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